Now in its 59th year, the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition never fails to collect an extraordinary selection of images from around the world.
This year, 49,957 entries were received from 95 countries around the world. And while the job of sifting through all those lies with the expert panel that decides the best in each of the numerous categories — as well as the overall winner — there is also a People's Choice award that is open to the public vote. For this award, 25 images are shortlisted.
The list includes images that are beautiful, touching, funny and delightful. There is a touch of magic in Ayala Fishaimer's image of a fox and a shrew seemingly holding the sort of conversation you'd see in an Aesop Fable; and Andy Parkinson's extraordinary picture of two courting mountain hares coming together to touch noses in Scotland's Monadhliath Mountains is heartwarming. Andy has been capturing pictures of wildlife in the Highlands for 15 years, but he'd never witnessed this before.
But in some cases the images are horrifying or depressing: Brent Stirton's picture of an elephant rummaging through a rubbish dump in Sri Lanka, for example, and Britta Jaschinski's sickening but important photograph of fur coats made from the skins of endangered big cats that had been confiscated by customs officers across Europe. 'During the photoshoot, Britta learnt that on average the fur industry uses 12 animals to make one coat,' the competition notes add. 'Together with a biologist, she tried to identify how many cats were killed to produce the fashion items in this image, but they stopped counting, as it was just too shocking.'
As for our favourites? Country Life's picture editor Lucy Ford chose Nima Sarikhani's image of a polar bear looking for a place to sleep on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.
For this year's competition, 25 images have been shortlisted. You can see more about the competition, read more about the stories behind the images and vote for your favourite at www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/peoples-choice.
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